"how you doin?" (c) joey tribiani

there is an interesting article in the october issue of "us news & world report" about teen sexualtiy, and more specifically, sexual education.

interesting facts:
1) CA, Penn, and Maine all forfeit federal aid to be able to teach information that is not exclusively abstinence
2) only 15% of parents around the US want abstinence only education
3) 20% of all teens have had intercourse by age 15
4) 50% of all teens have had oral sex by age 15
5) 88% of all teens that pledge to remain abstinent until marriage...don't

the debate over sex ed curriculum is an interesting one. we cannot remove values and ethics from the debate. it mandates (in my opinion) the considersation of religion in the discussion. but since you can't speak about those things in school, how do you teach an abstinence curriculum well? "Oh, well, don't have sex until you get married. You might get the clap, or those funny warts." That's all fine and dandy, but remove ethics and all you have is a medical obstacle which can be avoided (fairly well, not completely obviously) by a condom. i don't know how well I could teach abstinence curriculum in a school without the aid of ethics...

on the other hand, teach a kid all about sex and the methods to protect themselves from everything but a good time, and you could be inviting them to have sex (some believe).

the truth is that a comprehensive sex ed course that teaches both sides doesn't make people any more or less willing to indulge. the decision to abstain will ALWAYS be made from a moral position, christian or otherwise. a 17 year old boy doesn't abstain unless he wants to (insert morality here) or he can't get none. it's not cuz he's scared of getting the clap.

the bottom line is that if parents are taking care of business at home and helping their children to live moral lives, and they are teaching their children how to make good decisions, you could give them all the condoms in the world and they would still make the decision they would have made to begin with.

just my $0.02